Trump spent 1 In 5 days at golf clubs in 2019, despite saying he won't have time as President

If I had to pick one word for the past 3 years of Donald Trump's presidency, I'd skip the popular choices of childish, unpresidential, tantrum spree, narcissistic, racist, incompetent, egotistical, dishonest, etc. Instead, I believe "hypocritical" is the perfect description of the former businessman's time in the White House. Almost every single day, we are presented with new evidence of his hypocrisy and how the exact same words he previously used to criticize his foes are an almost comically perfect fit for himself. You could even say he's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Recently, CNN released an interesting statistic about Trump's 2019 golfing habits—yes, the very same he claimed he wouldn't have time for as President—revealing that he has spent 1 in every 5 days last year at a golf club. This came as the 73-year-old closed out the year with a visit to his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach on December 31. Tuesday marked Trump's 12th visit to the golf club during his Florida vacation, bringing up the total number of days he's spent at a Trump golf club as the President to at least 252.

In 2019 alone, Trump spent at least 86 days at a golf club with these excursions, including the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia; his Bedminister, New Jersey, golf club; Trump National Doral outside Miami; and Trump International Doonbeg in Ireland. Sure, one might say it is quite unfair to dig so deep into his golfing habits as he is by no means the only President with a love for the sport. However, Trump's frequent trips to the golf course have charlatanry written all over them when considering how frequently—and publically—he criticized his predecessor Barack Obama's golf habits.

As for Trump's undying interest in just how much golf Obama played, Mark Knoller of CBS News—who keeps detailed statistics of presidencies—stated in 2016 that the former 
President played 333 rounds of golf during his eight years in office. Ahem! Now if we are to turn our attention to the former business concern for the taxpayer money his predecessor spent playing golf, it also raises a lot of questions about Trump's frequent trips to his namesake properties and the millions of taxpayer dollars the federal government has poured into them.

According to The Huffington Post, despite Trump frequently boasting about forgoing his salary as President—as of November 2019—he had already cost Americans at least 287 times of his annual salary. The President's golf hobby was estimated to have come up to a whopping $115 million in travel and security expenses, of which many hundreds of thousands—maybe even millions—of dollars went into his own pocket as Secret Service agents, White House staff, and other administration officials stay and eat at his hotels and golf courses during his trips.

"It’s becoming abundantly clear that Donald Trump uses his presidency as a way to put money into his pocket. The issue isn’t that he likes golf. The issue is that he has spent a huge amount of his presidency making promotional appearances at his struggling golf courses, and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill," said Jordan Libowitz of the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

In addition to violating the emoluments clause in the Constitution—which clearly states that the President shouldn't accept benefits beyond his salary from the federal or any state government—Trump also never misses any chance to plug his properties while on official duty. During a Christmas Eve call with US service members, he said, "I'm at a place called Mar-a-Lago, we call it the southern White House. I really pretty much work. That's what I like to do." Such statements are clearly a call to lobbyists and businessmen hoping to meet the President to stay at his resort and maybe stand the chance to see him.